Hello Here is the scenario. I have a very old LaTeX which is full of definitions like: \def\be{\begin{equation}} \def\ee{\end{equation}} \def\bqa{\begin{eqnarray}} \def\eqa{\end{eqnarray}} Etc. I want to replace the old definitions by the original LaTeX commands (for many reasons) Now I have some old code[1] which allows me to define a list and then all in once. The table structure is (defvar old2new-trans-tab '( ("\\al" "\\alpha") ("\\a" "\\\[0.2cm]"))) The relevant function which is doing the replacement is. (defun ltxoldnew-translate-conventions (trans-tab) "Use the translation table argument to translate the current buffer." (save-excursion (let ((beg (point-min-marker)) ; see the `(elisp)Narrowing' Info node (end (point-max-marker))) (unwind-protect (progn (widen) (goto-char (point-min)) (let ((buffer-read-only nil) ; (inhibit-read-only t)? (case-fold-search nil)) (while trans-tab (save-excursion (let ((trans-this (car trans-tab))) (while (search-forward (car trans-this) nil t) (replace-match (car (cdr trans-this)) t t))) (setq trans-tab (cdr trans-tab)))))) (narrow-to-region beg end))))) The problem is that there at least two constructs which have a similar starting but different ending, \a an \al. So I thought I replace (while (search-forward (car trans-this) nil t) by (while (search-forward-regexp (car trans-this) nil t) And the table (defvar old2new-trans-tab '( ("\b\al\b" "\\alpha") ("\b\a\b" "\\\[0.2cm]"))) But it does not work. Does anybody know how to add some regexp-functionality like word boundaries in the code? thanks uwe Brauer _______________________________________________ XEmacs-Beta mailing list XEmacs-Beta(a)xemacs.org http://lists.xemacs.org/mailman/listinfo/xemacs-beta